So, something like do judges have a responsibility to refuse to enforce an unjust law?

It does seem like quite an interesting topic, but wouldn't I first have to discuss whether there can be such a thing as an unjust law and if so, what criteria we should apply to determine that a particular law is unjust?

rokafella14 wrote:So, something like do judges have a responsibility to refuse to enforce an unjust law?

It does seem like quite an interesting topic, but wouldn't I first have to discuss whether there can be such a thing as an unjust law and if so, what criteria we should apply to determine that a particular law is unjust?

You don't need a theory of language to use words. In the same way, you don't need to discuss whether unjust laws can exist nor do you need to discuss the criteria of justice to engage with the question.

Not to mention, what the heck do you mean "whether there can be such a thing as an unjust law"? Are you that much of a moral relativist/moral skeptic that you think that might even be possible? What about a law that says "be unjust"? In case you don't think laws that bald-faced can exist, consider Jews for Jesus v. LAX where the ordinance prohibited all "First Amendment activities" in the Los Angeles International Airport.

But seriously, you've never thought about Nazi germany, Slavery, Jim Crow, and wondered, "hmm, those laws, they seem like they must have been unjust"? Really? Never?

I also think the the tension between moral advocacy and legal integrity when it comes to certain laws is a really interesting topic. I think kritarch is talking about laws that are "unjust" in the sense that they are immoral. Perhaps laws themselves are always technically "just" as justice itself is defined by the law and not the other way around, but the laws in any society are still objectively flawed in-fact to some extent. Talk about how bad these flaws need to be before an individual has a duty to violate the law rather than obey it. Can a lawyer ever have a duty to violate a law, such as those in kritarch's examples? This is a good topic.